Filmmakers Tommy Hyde, left, and Aaron Woolf (Provided photo — Naj Wikoff)
Have you ever had a big dream, something audacious? Vermont dairy farmer Doug Butler dreamed of racing in Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the famed 938-mile, 20-day race between Anchorage and Nome.
First, although, he needed to breed a staff of dogs with the right combination of talents, discover ways to race them, do nicely sufficient racing in Vermont, after which make it to Alaska and compete in a race there.
His different problem was holding his household dairy farm vibrant at a time when making a residing as a farmer was robust sufficient in any facet, however particularly so at a time when many small farms had been going underneath as they misplaced business to non-milk-based merchandise and much bigger dairy enterprises.
A 3rd problem is that Butler had by no means been away from his farm for greater than three days or gone a lot of anyplace.
On Jan. 27, the New York state premiere of “Underdog,” a documentary about Butler and the pursuit of his dream whereas his business collapsed round him, filmed and directed by Tommy Hyde and produced by Aaron Woolf, was held on the Whallonsburg Grange to a standing-room-only viewers.
Farmers Dillon Klepetar and Melody Horn with Ben Stechschulte on the precise (Provided photograph — Naj Wikoff)
“First and foremost, the challenge of making a documentary is finding a subject that you want to spend your life with because the process of making a documentary film is long and arduous,” mentioned Ben Stechschulte, of Keene Valley, who has spent a long time documenting demolition derbies. “You need to find a subject that you love and fall in love with on some level because you will spend a lot of time together.”
When a freshman at Middlebury, Tommy Hyde, was given a category task to make a video about somebody from the Middlebury group. His professor advised he think about Butler, a dairy farmer who he heard had three or 4 sled dogs (in fact, nearer to 3 dozen, as Hyde found).
To his shock, he discovered Butler very welcoming. Thus started a 12-year relationship wherein Hyde, digicam in hand, started documenting all points of his life.
When Tommy Hyde started creating a relationship with Butler, 44% of small farm dairy farms in Vermont, these with fewer than 200 cows, went out of business. Meanwhile, others, with 700 plus cows, greater than doubled. Small farms couldn’t function as effectively as large-scale farms, which was crucial when farms had been producing an oversupply of milk as increasingly folks turned to non-dairy-based merchandise like cashews, oats and soy.
Another drawback is that federal rules, developed throughout the presidents Nixon and Ford years underneath Earl Butz, assistant secretary of agriculture, favored large-scale farms. Thus, regardless of an general improve in demand for dairy merchandise, similar to cheese and specialty yogurts, federal regulation additional hampers the power of small dairy farmers to outlive. Indeed, throughout this time, some, like Butler, would buy one other failed small farm’s cows; thus, even so, the economics, rules, and conventional methods of farming had been stacked towards them.
Throw within the time and cost of creating and racing a sled canine staff; the challenges had been much more vital. The magic of this documentary is how Butler may allure and tease a bit extra time from his collectors whereas each working to maintain the household farm afloat whereas visions of Alaska danced in his head.
A magical facet of the movie is Hyde’s capability to seize Butler’s life as a dairy farmer, his household, colleagues, collectors, and others that make up life on a dairy farm. No small feat, as he needed to turn into so trusted as to vanish and mix into the material of their lives. That stage of belief takes time, and Hyde supplied that point.
Another magical facet is Butler’s joyful, effervescent persona. He lived life to the fullest, perfecting his capability to grab an open can of beer from the outstretched arms of race followers as he and his surging canine staff zoomed by. Nothing deterred his optimism or his capability to forge forward, be it the problem of creating a telephone invoice or his old pickup with over 350,000 miles and 24 dogs in tow breaking down en path to Alaska.
Six years in the past, Tommy Hyde’s luck after having greater than 120 hours of movie within the can was connecting with filmmaker Aaron Woolf of Elizabethtown, an award-winning documentarian with expertise telling a farm-based story, “King Corn,” and getting him to assist pull the documentary collectively.
“It was a tough nut to crack,” mentioned Woolf. “There was a lot of footage that was very inspiring and a lot of footage that was tough to use. Making a documentary is hard. But I felt that there was a character here who could get us past any technical glitches. And we had enough time to fill in any gaps. The thrill about non-fiction filmmaking is the ability to craft a story while it’s happening, and it’s one that you don’t know what the ending will be.”
“It’s a bit of a roller coaster,” mentioned Hyde. “Butler wears his emotions on his sleeve, and that’s what’s so great about him. It was hard not to get swept up into whatever orbit or kick he was on any day. It was also very hard to quit the project, which I wanted to do so many times.”
“The thing that I appreciated about the film was the time and energy that the filmmakers put into telling the story,” mentioned Stechschulte. “I’m most attracted to projects where the filmmakers spend enough time with their subject to form a kind of dance where the collaboration of the subject and the filmmakers create a kind of truth. The filmmaker is in a position to film the world through their subjects’ eyes and illustrate world effectively.”
The filmmakers pulled it off, receiving an extended and spirited standing ovation.
“I loved it,” mentioned Kathy Recchia. I assumed it was very shifting. Several instances, I assumed, this isn’t scripted, it’s taking place, to be current for that could be a stunning expertise.”
“The feeling I’m left with is when you are making your living completely as a farmer, it’s fiscally irresponsible to do anything but farm, and I’m pleased that he did,” mentioned Courtney Grimes-Sutton. “I loved the film.”
Hopefully, the Lake Placid Film Festival will display screen “Underdog.”
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(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been masking occasions for the Lake Placid News for greater than 15 years.)
